On October 5
No pivotal events are recorded on exactly October 5. The closest is Launch of Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite on October 4, 1957 (1 day earlier).
This week in history (Oct 2 to Oct 8)
The Council of Chalcedon, the fourth ecumenical council, convened from 8 October to 1 November 451 at Chalcedon in Bithynia (modern Kadikoy, Istanbul), summoned by the Eastern Roman emperor Marcian and attended by roughly 520 bishops, the…
On 4 October 1957 the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial Earth satellite, from the Baikonur (Tyuratam) site in the Kazakh Republic.
On 3 October 1990, the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) ceased to exist and joined the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), restoring a single German state for the first time since 1945.
On 7 October 2023 the Palestinian militant group Hamas launched a large-scale surprise assault from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel, breaching the border barrier and attacking military bases and civilian communities.
On 7 October 1571 a fleet of the Holy League, a Catholic coalition assembled by Pope Pius V and led by Spain and Venice under Don Juan of Austria, defeated the Ottoman navy in the Gulf of Patras off western Greece.
On 6 October 1927 Warner Bros. premiered The Jazz Singer in New York City, the first feature-length motion picture with synchronised recorded music and passages of lip-synchronous singing and speech.
On 6 October 1973, the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur, Egypt and Syria under Anwar Sadat and Hafez al-Assad launched a coordinated surprise attack on Israeli forces in the Sinai and the Golan Heights, seeking to recover territory lost in…
On 7 October 2001 a US-led coalition launched air strikes on Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, opening Operation Enduring Freedom less than a month after the September 11 attacks.